My friend, Jenn, grows vegetables in the Tucson area of Arizona. With temperatures frequently reaching into the 100s and long periods without rain, saving water is imperative. She’s collecting water in rain barrels during the monsoon season to help keep her tomatoes growing and has plans this year to install a gray water system. “Gray water” is waste water from a home (except water from toilets). A gray water system recycles shower, sink, and laundry water for other purposes, typically for irrigation.

Arizona offers a state tax incentive of 25 percent of the cost up to $1000 for residents installing gray water systems. The state’s gray water plan is considered the model, and many states have adopted similar plans. Skepticism is still a hold-out for many others though – gray water has been considered “waste water” for so long that it’s difficult to break old habits and outmoded ideas. Check out Grey Water Central for more information about gray water.

I learned about Jenn’s plans when I asked her what she does to save money and help the environment at the same time. These days it seems cultivating environmentally friendly habits and saving money are on nearly everyone’s minds. The steps you take to save the planet can help you save money too; by making smarter choices, you can reduce your environmental impact without reducing your bank account. Her gray water system will be a big initial expense for Jenn, but she’ll recoup her investment over time. It’s not always the things with large price tags though, such as gray water systems, energy efficient appliances or “green” houses that translate into adopting a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Just a few small changes can produce major results.

There are a couple simple things I’ve done for years to save money and energy. I turn off the dishwasher after the final rinse and leave the door open to let the dishes air-dry. I recently read that eliminating the use of a dishwasher’s heated-dry cycle reduces energy use by up to 50 percent per wash.

I also avoid washing laundry in hot water – the warm wash/cold rinse and even the cold wash/cold rinse cycles on a washing machine work fine with all temperature detergents. Up to 95 percent of the energy used by washing machine goes toward heating the water. The electrical cost (excluding the cost of water) to run a machine at the hot/warm setting is 58 cents per load, or an average of $226 per year. In comparison, the cost per load at the cold/cold setting is 3 cents, for an average of $11 per year. Washing your clothes in hot water for a year uses more energy than leaving the refrigerator door open 24 hours a day for an entire year!

Reading these statistics about how much money I was saving and how much I reduced my energy consumption from just these two simple things made me wonder what other things people I know do to save money and be eco-friendly. I not only posed the question to Jenn, but asked the same of other friends.      

Paul reserves one day a week as his “No Car Day.” This requires some advance planning – there’s no just hopping in the car and going. He runs errands and combines shopping trips on the days he drives. He checks in advance to see if his friends and neighbors are going in the same direction, asking if he can catch a ride with them. By limiting the use of his car, he’s not only saving gas money and wear on his vehicle, but he’s reducing his contribution to carbon emissions – each gallon of gas a vehicle consumes emits 19.6 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.

Many of GRIT’s bloggers wrote they start their plants from seeds – Lori, Brent and LeAnna, Paul, and Debbie – how’d you like to receive pots and seed trays free? Here’s an insider tip from the nursery for people who start their plants from seed: Annual bedding plant season is almost here, and now is the best time to get containers to grow your seedlings in – at no cost.

Our nursery customers are encouraged to return pots after they’ve planted their perennials, shrubs, and trees, and we reuse them. The ones that are damaged and can’t be reused are sent to be recycled. It’s amazing though, the amount of plastic a nursery generates that ends up in the dumpster – it’s all those trays and smaller pots that annuals come in that aren’t recyclable. Check with your local nursery – if it’s a full service nursery, often hundreds of flats of bedding plants will be planted in landscape customers’ gardens. Most of the trays and pots these plants come in are not reusable to the nursery, and are made of too flimsy of a plastic to be accepted by recycling companies. Most nurseries will gladly give them away rather than throw them in a dumpster and pay to have them hauled away.

(It should be noted that reused pots should be bathed in a bleach water solution to prevent the spread of plant disease.)   

Luanne starts her seeds in butter and yoghurt containers she’s saved during the year. She not only recycles, but she Freecycles too. The Freecycle Network™ is a global nonprofit movement based on the principle that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Instead of putting good, reusable items out for the trash, list them on your town or county’s Freecycle bulletin board (in our county’s case it’s a Yahoo Group). People can give and get items free that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Check out the Freecycle website to find a group near you.

Luanne gathers friends together in spring for a plant swap party. Guests bring divisions of their perennials, a dish to pass, and spend the afternoon exchanging plants and visiting. She says, “For just a little work, you can have a good visit with friends, snacks and come home with new plants for your own garden.”

It’s at gatherings of friends that Quetta chooses to serve on real plates and use silverware instead of disposable paper, plastic, or Styrofoam. At larger events such as block-parties, family reunions, or work parties where it’s typical for disposable dinnerware to be used, she suggests including in the invitation a paragraph such as the following:

In an effort to try and do our part to be green, we will not be providing disposable plates and plastic ware. Please help do your part too and bring your own non-disposable dinnerware.

She says you’d be surprised at how much others will pitch in if they know you’re trying to make a difference. Eliminating the use of disposable dinnerware reduces the amount of trash you’re producing, and the cost of buying it. It’s an item of convenience, not a necessity.

Quetta is concerned about the contaminants in her tap water; in addition she says it just tastes nasty. But she’s also concerned about the number of plastic water bottles ending up in landfills so buying bottled water is not an option she considers. Her solution is to reuse the glass jugs that her favorite organic apple juice comes in by taking them to her grocery store and refilling them at a reverse osmosis water station. It costs only 29 cents per gallon. Instead of grabbing a plastic water bottle on the way out the door when she’s on the go, she fills lidded stainless steel cups from these jugs.

Most of the large grocery chains have these types of water stations; I checked with my small local grocery – they have one too, and charge 39 cents per gallon to refill containers. Even at the slightly higher price than the large chain stores offer, it’s more economical to refill at the station than to purchase bottled water.

She buys her eggs from a local woman who offers a free dozen eggs to anyone that brings her five empty cartons. GRIT blogger, Becky Sell, wrote in “Could We Possibly Blog More About Chickens?!” that Foxwood Family Farm accepts used egg cartons. Many egg cartons are made from Styrofoam – a substance that some studies found lasts for 500 years; others state it takes 900 years for Styrofoam to decompose; and a Penn State University study says it never decomposes. Farmers offering to accept egg cartons in exchange for a promotional free dozen eggs benefits everyone involved – it generates customer loyalty and community support for the farmer; less Styrofoam makes it to the landfills daily; and who wouldn’t want to go a bit out of their way for farm-fresh eggs?

* * * * *

Gathering ideas from my friends for this blog was a learning experience that will end up, I’m sure, being much more habit-changing for me than reading articles in a magazine or on a website written by someone with whom I don’t have a personal connection. Clipped articles often get lost a sea paperwork cluttering desks, and websites saved with the best of intentions to return later don’t always get clicked on again.

Conversation, though, is an exchange of ideas, sparks thought, and encourages brainstorming among friends. It’s a sharing of experiences, and an opportunity to give and get encouragement to try new ideas. We’ve all heard at least once someone say, “one person isn’t going to make a difference.” Quetta doesn’t buy into that philosophy, saying, “Maybe not for this one particular moment in time. But multiply that one thing over the course of a year and then you start to realize how much one person does matter ... and that it all starts with just one person getting one other person to make a couple of changes.”

I started gathering information for this blog two weeks ago by asking the simple question, “What do you do to save money, and be eco-friendly?” I ended up with a lot more suggestions than I have space here to list. If you’ve read this, don’t keep it to yourself. Ask your friends and co-workers the same question. The responses you get and give in return may encourage you and someone else to make a few very simple changes that can benefit everyone in the long run.

Happy Earth Day! Celebrate today; live it everyday!

Ta-da-da-ta-ta-da! The daffodils are here! The early flowering bulbs have been opened for a couple of weeks – the crocus, the snowdrops, and the cute, little chionodoxa – glory-of-the-snow. They are all welcome spring visitors, but it’s in eager anticipation, I await my favorite springtime flower: the daffodil. When the daffodils bloom, it really feels like spring has arrived. I think it’s so fitting that they have built-in trumpets to blare, “Spring is here!!!” So beautiful, they can toot their own horns all they like and no one would mind.

The early, little ‘Tete-de-Tetes’ in the nursery’s arboretum are in full bloom; my early varieties at home are just starting to open. It’s the perfect time to cut them, letting them open indoors so that their heady scent fills the house. The later varieties are still just nubs poking through the ground. My favorite of the later daffodils is ‘Thalia.’ Sometimes referred to as the orchid narcissus, it’s a beautiful, fragrant pure white daffodil. All daffodils are in the Narcissus genus, but not all Narcissus are daffodils.

One such non-daffodil Narcissus was a figure in Greek mythology. Narcissus was a beautiful, young hunter, without the disposition to match his appearance. Conceited – a true tooter of his own horn – and ill-tempered, his beauty was only skin deep.

Echo, a nymph of the woods and hills, was equally as beautiful as the young hunter. She had a gloriously sweet voice and was very fond of using it – always getting in the last word in conversations or arguments. This proved to be her curse. Echo kept Hera, the reigning goddess of Olympus, detained with her chatter while Hera’s philandering husband, Zeus, escaped the company of the nymphs unnoticed by his wife. Zeus escaped Hera’s wrath, but Echo did not. “You shall still have the last word, but no power to speak first,” Hera cursed when she discovered what Echo had done.

Echo, tormented with repeating all she heard, saw Narcissus chasing prey in the mountains and fell hopelessly in love. Not being able to express herself without sounding like a broken record, it was an unrequited love. “Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Pete fell out and who was left?” With Echo repeating everything Narcissus said, their conversation was reminiscent of that children’s joke we’ve all heard a thousand times … possibly at one retelling. Narcissus found Echo to be a repetitive bore and shunned her. Echo was devastated and headed to the mountains. There poor Echo pined away and died, only her voice living on in the hills. You can still call to her to this day, and she will answer … but Hera’s curse was not lifted upon her death, and all you will hear is Echo repeating your call.

One good curse deserves another and what goes around comes around. Nemesis, the avenging goddess, punished Narcissus for his vanity and cold-heartedness by dooming him to “feel what it was to love and meet no return of affection”; he was cursed with falling in love with his own image.

In a pool Narcissus gazed, becoming so self-absorbed he forgot all else. He would have done well to use that self-absorption to his advantage by becoming sponge-like. Then he could have soaked up the water in the pool, releasing himself from gazing upon his own reflection. As it were, he was resigned to stare into the pools of his eyes reflected in the pools of water. Whenever he bent to hug or kiss the image in the pool, the water would ripple and his love, disappear. It eventually drove him to madness. Then he too, wilted and died, leaving only a flower in his place.

As with most of the Greek myths, there are variations of the story of Narcissus. The same is true of the origins of the word “daffodil” – tracing a word back in time can lead to origins as cloudy as poor Narcissus’ eyes became after staring at his reflection for so long. Originally “daffodil” was affodil, which referred to a plant in the lily family, the asphodel. The “asph” in asphodel became “aff” probably through phonetics and a misspelling. In medieval manuscripts, asphodel was spelled phonetically as “asfodel”. It’s thought probable one scribe could not decipher the lettering of another scribe, and “asfodel” became affodil. The first appearance of “daffodil” came in the sixteenth century, and how the “d” got to the front of the line-up is unclear. Best guesses are that daffodil is corrupted from the Dutch de affodil, “the affodil.” (Then, as now, the Dutch were leaders in bulb cultivation.)

Whatever the story behind the words, one thing is for certain. The sunny-yellow daffodil brightens gardens and hearts alike.

When the Dog Star, Sirius, rises with the sun to create the hottest days of summer, we call them the “dog days.” Torrid heat causes a languid stagnation, which is where the “dog days” get their second definition: a stagnant time period marked by a dull lack of progress. My dog days this year were neither of these. They occurred mid-November and lasted until the end of March when the sun rarely made an appearance, and created even less heat. These dark, winter days weren’t dull either; there was quite a bit of excitement to them.

Ahhh, to be completely relaxed ...

To be King of your Domain ...

Ranger and Dusty, our two current resident felines: The Lovable Idiot, and the Hell Cat.

In November all of that changed. There was to be no relaxation for Ranger; Dusty did not have total control over his domain. Their lives changed drastically with the pitter-patter of little feet ... puppy feet!

There were a couple of stipulations to be met before we agreed to the girls request last spring that we get another dog – Shelby was just six when our sweet, sweet Tucker, the beagle of all beagles died; Shannon was still an infant and does not remember him at all. For seven years we have been a dog-less family, and neither Keith nor I minded not having the responsibility, though we were open to the possibility of accepting a canine into our feline dominated household. Our stipulations were simple. First, the girls had to take complete responsibility for our two cats for six months – feeding them, brushing them, and changing the litter box – to prove they'd be responsible enough to have a dog. The second stipulation was that we weren't getting one until the nursery closed for the winter and I was off work so someone would be home during the day to house train it.

Their six month period of total cat responsibility ended, and they proved themselves capable. They were so excited, waiting eagerly for the day to come when I announced I was through with work for the season. A few days after the nursery closed, we visited Al-Van Humane Society here in town. Sadly, there were more than enough dogs to choose from, but we all knew this four-month old black lab mix was our dog as soon as we saw her. Names were discussed, but none of them seemed special enough. I suggested the unique name of a very dear friend of mine, we all agreed, and welcomed Marquetta (Mar-key-tah) into our home. She is Quetta for short.

She looks like a black lab, but with a less-square head, pointy snout, and smaller feet. The vet guessed beagle might be stirred into the mix. Whatever she is, Quetta is beautiful. Her coat is shiny and black as ink. Soulful brown eyes look up at me with that “puppy dog look”; how could I possibly be angry for long with her for chewing to shreds whatever Non-Food Item Du-Jour that’s tempted her. Like most puppies, Quetta chews. She’s very adept at this skill and is always working to perfect it. In the sport of Extreme Chewing, it only took her five unattended minutes to chew a hole through one of my new leather boots. Given ten minutes by herself, and my new dining room carpet has a nice hole in the middle of it. Berber carpet, it’s been discovered, will unravel quite quickly and easily once it’s snagged with a sharp tooth.

It’s her ears that are the most expressive – all her emotions are clearly visible by the way she positions them. They are goofy ears; neither a lab’s nor a beagle’s. They stick out straight from the side of her head, then flop, their pointed tips hanging downward. I call them her “bat-wings.” When she runs, her bat-wings flap up and down rapidly until finally they somehow always end up inside out. “Quetta, fix your ears,” I tell her. She shakes her head back and forth as if to say, “No!” just like an uncooperative toddler who needs a nap. Or maybe she’s doing exactly what she’s been told. In either case, it does the trick and her inside-out ears are bat-wings again.

Aside from her chewing bad habit, she’s better-behaved inside the house than I could have imagined a lab puppy would be. For a couple of weeks, we had some issues on where was the best place to relieve herself – she wasn’t house-broken at the shelter. But her “accidents” weren’t entirely her fault. She’d stand at the door without making a sound – no bark, or whimper – and if one of us did not happen to see her there, there was where she chose to go. This was quickly remedied using Shelby’s friend’s suggestion that we “bell-train” her. We hung a bell on the door-knob, and in less than a week she learned to ring by nudging it with her nose when she needed to be let out. There have been no accidents since, but there has been some Bell Abuse. I now know how my mother felt when my brothers and I used to drive her crazy when we were kids running in and out of the house a thousand times a day. Hearing the screen door open and slam shut repeatedly, she’d finally say, “Inside or out. Pick one and stay there.”

Though she’s three times their size, my concern about the cats holding their own against her was needless. She learned King Dusty rules the house with an iron paw and not to question his authority. Dusty, the smallest of our three animals, is still the dominant beast in the household. He’ll actually sit near Quetta without too much fuss; I never realized a twelve pound cat can emit a growl that sounds exactly like a wild mountain lion. The cat chases the dog, gets in a few good licks with his paws, but is not all puffed up to four times his actual size as he was when Quetta first came home. Ranger is still a hold-out and has a hissy-fit every time he sees the dog before retreating to his safe haven up the stairs.

Quetta and I were constant companions over the winter. We walked many miles together – she put in double the miles because she runs up ahead, runs back, and then circles around. We’ve traveled alone and with friends and dogs of friends. We’ve been through town, behaving like proper ladies – except in Decadent Dogs, where wild around-the-counter chases and play is encouraged among its patrons. We’ve let our hair loose together and have been free to roam down country roads, on sandy beaches and in snow up to my knees (and her belly), tromping through the woods. She is as comfortable being a country dog as she is at home being a town dog.

It’s spring, and my Dog Days of Winter came to an end last week when the nursery re-opened. I’ll miss our one-sided talks and lengthy middle-of-the-day walks just Marquetta and me, until the Dog Days of Winter roll around again.

Right now though, I’ve got to sign off. Someone’s at the door, ringing the bell.